Following his surprise retirement last week, the former Patriots tight end has revealed that his next step will be to move to Japan and see how high up the professional sumo ranks he can climb. Gronkowski, who has previously moonlighted in professional wrestling, said that the move was inspired by Tom Brady’s visit to Japan in 2017, when the Patriots quarterback visited Sakaigawa beya and trained with none other than Ozeki Goeido. He plans to use the connections Brady made during the visit to enter the sumo world.

Gronkowski, who stands 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) and weighs 268 lb (122 kg), knows that while he is big for an NFL tight end, he will need to put on some weight to succeed in professional sumo. Having famously not touched any of his career NFL earnings, “Gronk” says that he is prepared for heya life and looks forward to doing the chores that are expected of low-ranked rikishi. “I’ve read John Gunning’s article (on foreigners entering sumo), and I am not taking this lightly,” he said.

You can read the full interview with Gronkowski here.

Congratulations to our Ozeki Prediction Contest winners! @GhostVindaloo and @davidaconrad correctly chose Goeido, Takayasu, and Takakeisho as the May Ozeki cohort…and in the right order.

A lot of interesting work has gone into crowd predictions of the future…particularly around financial markets but sports are more interesting, no? So with that in mind, way back in February, I asked Twitter and on the blog, how many ozeki will we have? It turns out, the crowd was right! I was way wrong, as usual, choosing 5. *DO NOT bring up yu-SHODAI. Terrible pun; even worse prediction.*

Entering Haru Basho, there was a lot of uncertainty around this, with Tochinoshin’s kadoban status, and two possible ozeki runs in the offing from recent Emperor’s Cup winners, Takakeisho & Tamawashi. Come to think of it, Tochinoshin may also qualify as a recent yusho winner, but with his injury clearly hampering his success and the inability to sit out January or March to heal, the probability of his demotion was high.

Though Tamawashi’s putative ozeki run was over after the first few days, Takakeisho’s promotion and Tochinoshin’s demotion came down to their epic senshuraku matchup in a spectacular winner-take-all fashion. Perhaps the “Super Unknown” of this banzuke lineup was the lineup order between Goeido and Takayasu, in which case hometown hero Goeido did not disappoint. He put together a great 12-wins to solidify his Ozeki 1 East status for May.

Congratulations to @GhostVindaloo and @davidaconrad for reading the tea leaves better than me, and wear your Tachiai swag proudly!

John Gunning has written another great piece for Japan Times, Dominant Hakuho continues to redefine greatness. In the article, he discusses the magnitude of Hakuho’s achievements and the preposterousness of the claims that they can be attributed to weaker competition. Here’s a snippet, but I highly recommend the whole thing.

In terms of pure numbers, there is no one that even comes close.

A few years ago, some German sumo fans compiled ELO-style ratings for sumo going back to the 1950s. A few different methods were used but all of them reached essentially the same conclusion — Hakuho is the best there has ever been, and by a significant margin.

The yokozuna passes the eye test as well, constantly adjusting his style of sumo over the years either to cope with age and injury or just to challenge himself and maintain his position at the head of the pack.